Link belts are generally known and used in a variety of applications, such as transmission belts and conveyor belts. When used as a conveyor, link belts frequently must transport materials that have been heated to elevated temperatures. When the temperature of the materials conveyed exceeds 300.degree. F. conventional link belts degrade and fail prematurely.
To overcome the difficulties associated with extreme high temperatures, it has been proposed to make the belt links out of a ceramic material, such as the belt disclosed in Takahashi 4,903,824. The problem with these belts is they are expensive to make, typically requiring an entirely new manufacturing process to fabricate the belt.
Another way to overcome the difficulties associated with high temperatures is proposed in Japanese Patent No. 0.097,345. The '345 patent proposed to overcome the problem by utilizing a series of narrow C-shaped members to encase the belt on three sides. This solution suffers from several problems.
First, the heat protection members must be sufficiently short so that they do not affect the flexibility of the belt. Significantly increasing the rigidity of the belt will hinder the ability of the belt to properly flex around the pulleys that drive the belt. If the heat protection members are short enough to maintain the flexibility of the belt, then the number of members required to protect a belt is quite high, making it time consuming to connect all of the members to the belt.
The second problem associated with the proposal in the '345 patent is that it interferes with the mechanism used to drive the belt. By enclosing the belt on three sides, the heat protection members increase the width of the belt and affect the shape of the belt. This creates difficulties with the interface between the belt and the mechanism driving the belt.